Perhaps the most
profound insight into Bernini's conception of his work at St Peter's is
provided by a passage about the juvenile artist in Filippo Baldinucci's
biography, published two years after Bernini's death at age eighty-two
in 1680.

It happened one day
that he found himself in the company of Annibale Carracci [Carracci died
in 1609; - Bernini was born in 1598] and other masters in the basilica
of St Peter's. They had finished their devotions and were leaving the
church when that great master, turning toward the tribune, said, "Believe
me, the day will come, when no one knows, that a prodigious genius will
make two great monuments in the middle and at the end of this temple on
a scale keeping with the vastness of the building." That was enough to
set Bernini afire with desire to execute them himself and, not being able
to restrain his inner impulse, he said in heartfelt words, "Oh, if only
I could be the one." Thus, unconsciously, he interpreted Annibale's prophecy
and later brought it to pass, as we will relate in due course when we
tell of the wonderful works he executed for those places.1

The source of the
anecdote can only have been Bernini himself, and although it implies a
kind of providential intervention in the completion of St Peter's on the
artist's behalf, its art-historical significance lies in what it suggests
about Bernini's underlying motivation in the work. It seems that, stimulated
by the insight of one of the artists he admired most, Bernini from the
beginning had in mind a vision, however vague and inchoate, of the church
as a whole. In fact, drawings made half a century later show him realizing
exactly this dream. As if in fulfillment of Carracci's prognosis, Bernini
studies the visual relationship between two of the most magnificent art
works of modern history, the view through the Baldacchino to the Cathedra
Petri in the apse (Fig. 108). This is not to say that Bernini had a preconceived
scheme for the projects he would carry out at St Peter's. But Carracci's
remark, which applied to the specific problem of relating the high altar
to the apse, represents a way of thinking that Bernini would develop into
a comprehensive worldview, unified by certain threads of form and meaning
common to everything he designed. Bernini was of course an employee of
the papacy, and nothing happened without the initiative and/or approval
of the authorities, including a supervising committee of the College of
Cardinals, and often the pope himself. But Bernini was an employee of
a unique and exalted sort. That he was able to realize his vision was
due to the not less providential longevity of his responsibility for St
Peter's. His hegemony began informally soon after Urban VIII became pope
and became official in 1629 when, on the death of Carlo Maderno, Urban
appointed him architect of St Peter's. Over the remaining half-century
of his life Bernini was responsible for everything done at St Peter's,
serving no less than six popes (see Appendixes 1 and 2). Perhaps even
more remarkably, and owing as much to his brilliant if volatile personality
as to his talent, he maintained almost without interruption close personal
relations with all of them. There is probably no example in history of
such continuous (and continuously innovative) creativity, on such a scale,
on a single project, over such a long period, by a single artist (Figs.
109, 110)

Four important caveats
are in order before we consider this unexampled spectacle of creativity.
First, the discussion that follows is woefully incomplete, if only because
it deals with the monumental works that are still to be seen in St Peter's.
Bernini designed many works, small and large, that are left out of account,
from church furnishings and liturgical vestments, to vast temporary decorations
for canonizations; even huge bell towers, one of which was actually built
but soon dismantled because it was deemed unstable. Second, although discussion
will proceed in roughly chronological order, it is to a degree misleading,
since many projects overlapped and others were planned and carried out
in fits and starts over many years, even decades. Third, a veritable army
of artists and artisans carried out these works, some of them gigantic,
and although under Bernini's supervision they achieved a remarkable harmony
of style, his personal participation in the execution varied greatly.
Individual artistic personalities are often discernible. I have not attempted
to disentangle these problems of authorship, but I am convinced that at
least in some instances - notably the statues in the crossing piers and
the angels of the Ponte Sant'Angelo - Bernini condoned, or deliberately
encouraged, these individual differences, both for concerted expressive
effects and in order to manifest the human comprehensiveness of the concepts
and beliefs the woks embody. Finally, although certain elements required
for the outfitting of a church, even such a special one as St Peter's,
were predictable, Bernini obviously could not have premeditated some eventualities
and projects; these had to be integrated into the overall scheme after
the fact, as it were. Partly in response to such contingencies, and partly
of his own volition, Bernini's vision evolved in detail; but it remained
constant in essence. Through all the manifold vagaries of time, persons,
places, and things, one and only one mind was at work at St Peter's during
the long period in which the building was brought to completion. Despite
the vicissitudes of unforeseen developments and a situation fraught with
conflicting interests, Bernini was able to impress his conceptual and
visual stamp on the greatest building in Christendom and create the salient
image of an entire epoch:2
"singularis in singulis, in omnibus unicus" (Fig. 111).3

ST
PETER'S AS SUMMA ECCLESIARUM

Two major decisions,
taken at an interval of a century, established the fabric of the mother
church of Western Christendom as we know it today. The first, made early
in the sixteenth century, was to bring down the venerable but tottering
and by then inadequate Early Christian basilica. The old building had
been erected in the early fourth century by Constantine, the Roman emperor
who first recognized Christianity. The aim was to replace Old St Peter's
by a centrally planned structure built over the tombs of the apostles
Peter and Paul.4
The new design expressed above all the commemorative nature of the church,
its concentric and symmetrical geometry evoking an ancient sepulchral
tradition that had come to express the ideal, eternal perfection of the
Christian martyr and of Christ's church, here manifested in the person
of Saint Peter and in his office as the Vicar of Christ on earth. The
second decision, made in the early seventeenth century, was to add a longitudinal
nave, which thus restored to the building a semblance of its original
basilical form. The determination to add the nave was not so much owing
to the failure of the Bramante/Michelangelo plan to fulfill its intended
purpose (the reason given by the later generation) as the reflection of
a profound change in values that radically altered the relative importance
attached to the building's primary functions. In the wake of the Reformation
the attitude of the Church had taken an extroverted and aggressive turn,
which entailed a shift of emphasis in the liturgy from commemoration toward
the practical aspects of performance and involvement of the faithful.
In this new spiritual culture the earlier building made inadequate provision
for the sacristy and for the canon's choir, and was wholly unsuited to
the ceremonial processions that played an ever-increasing role in ecclesiastical
devotions and celebrations. The same underlying spirit also reaffirmed
the venerable traditions of the church, not only by returning to the basilical
form of the original building, but also by recognizing the value and importance
of its physical remains. A meticulous record of the Early Christian building
was made before it was demolished, not merely as a historical record,
but to ensure that many of its features might be translated into the new
church. The problem of furnishing this hybrid structure, combining two
complementary but contradictory ideological and functional traditions,
confronted the newly elected Urban VIII - who had strongly opposed the
demolition of the old building - and his chosen impresario. Reconciling
the merger of centralized and longitudinal building types in New St Peter's,
and the corresponding merger of commemorative and liturgical values, became
a fundamental, driving principle of the church's conceptualization and
design.

The same merging
and problems attendant upon it were inherent in the Cathedral of Florence,
the illustrious predecessor of St Peter's as the largest church in Christendom
and, as I believe, the prime model for both phases of its construction.
At Florence the identical designs of the transept arms and choir created
a centrally planned core around the high altar at the center, which in
turn was the focus of the nave (Fig. 112). The Duomo was the single most
important example to be emulated, and surpassed, not only with respect
to its unexampled size and blending of central and longitudinal building
types, but also in its devotion to Christ. Despite, or rather in a sense
owing to its dedication, S. Maria del Fiore, its two main interior furnishings
were Christological: the high altar, where Bandinelli's marble choir commemorate
the sacrifice (1547-72, Fig. 113); and Brunelleschi's famous cupola, where
Zuccari and Vasari had painted a vast fresco of the Last Judgment (1571-9,
Fig. 114).5
At St Peter's this principle had already been adopted in part with Cesare
d'Arpino's mosaic decoration of the cupola (Fig. 115): a Deesis composition
including the apostles and angels holding the instruments of the Passion,
which also alludes to the Last Judgment (1603-12).

THE
APSE AND CROSSING
(Figs. 116, 117)

THE HIGH ALTAR

Although adding the
nave solved some problems, it created others that came to the fore when
the new structure was completed and ready to receive the requisite furnishings.
The most essential components and the first to be attended to were the
high altar and the choir. In the traditional basilica the high altar was
placed at the entrance to the apse, and the choir for the attendant clergy
was installed around its perimeter. In a central plan structure, was the
high altar placed at a distance from the apse, such a solution was possible
only by including a choir with the high altar at the center of the crossing,
thus substantially blocking the view down the nave. This was the solution
adopted at Florence when Brunelleschi surrounded the high altar with a
low polygonal choir, after an earlier version had been rejected as too
obstructive. The difficulty can be recognized in the fact that Brunelleschi's
choir, which was built of wood and intended to be only temporary, in fact
remained in place for more than a century, with no final decision being
taken. Then, under very different circumstances, the Grand Duke Cosimo
de' Medici replaced Brunelleschi's choir with a much more elaborate and
monumental marble enclosure. His intervention was counter-current. Contemporaries
remarked on the irony of Cosimo's act of high-handed, aristocratic class-consciousness,
in sharp contrast to the new open policies of the mendicant orders, which
were then systematically updating their churches by demolishing the old
choir screens that excluded the faithful from religious functions and
blocked the view down the nave to the high altar.6

The difficulty was
precisely the same at St Peter's, and the dilemma must have been intensely
relevant for Bernini as well as for Urban VIII, who came from Tuscany
and was thoroughly familiar with the situation in Florence. Early in Urban's
reign the elements of a coherent plan emerged that sought to reconcile
the centrality of the crossing as the commemorative location of the tomb
of the apostles, with the longitudinal focus inspired by the new nave.
Although analogous proposals were made, the kind of encumbrance imposed
by the choir at Florence was ruled out, in favor of a solution involving
two altars, the isolated high altar dedicated to Peter and Paul over their
"confession," or subterranean burial place, and a second altar placed
toward the apse for papal functions involving the cardinals and associated
with a choir. The dilemma inherent in the size, form, and function of
St Peter's was such that no solution for a permanent choir was ever achieved:
to this day, when required for special occasions, temporary structures
of wood are installed in the apse with seating for the College of Cardinals.
But the idea for two major altars, one in the crossing and the other in
the apse, remained a permanent feature of the church.

BALDACHINS
AND CIBORIA

The solution in favor
of two altars at St Peter's was adopted early in the reign of Paul V,
when the drastic decision was taken to move the high altar to the apse.7
Thereafter, and continuing under Gregory XIV, the two altars were given
contrasting forms of covering reflecting their different functions. The
high altar in the apse was covered by a traditional architectural ciborium
surmounted by a cupola, distinguished in this case by wings consisting
of the precious twisted marble columns reputedly brought from Solomon's
Temple of Jerusalem by Constantine the Great and installed at the high
altar in the apse of the original basilica (Fig. 118, cf. Fig. 127). With
the removal of the high altar to the apse the altar over the tomb became
largely celebratory; it was marked by a series of what appeared to be,
and actually were, temporary installations conceived as portable baldachins
supported on four staves carried by standing or kneeling angels (Fig.
119). The idea of imitating a processional baldachin on a monumental scale
served two purposes. The slender, open design permitted maximum visibility
of the proceedings at the altar and beyond, toward the apse. But the disposition
must also be understood in reference to the grand ceremonial papal procession
of the Corpus Domini, which in some respects culminated the progressive
magnification of the Sacrament during the Counter-Reformation as the theological
heart of church doctrine (cf. Fig. 160). It had long since been decreed
that the Sacrament be displayed at the high altar of every church, and
Paul's baldachin was surely meant to evoke the honorific and celebratory
message of the Corpus Domini procession, in which the pope paraded the
sacramental Host from the basilica through the streets of Old Rome and
back again, under a tasseled baldachin carried by acolytes. By the end
of the sixteenth century, altars devoted the Sacrament had multiplied
and grown to huge proportions. At S. Maria Maggiore the centerpiece of
the mortuary chapel built by Sixtus V is a bronze sacrament altar with
four over-life-size angels carrying the tabernacle (Fig. 120). Around
1600, Paul V's predecessor, Clement VIII, erected a huge bronze sacrament
altar in the transept of the pope's episcopal seat and the cathedral of
Rome, S. Giovanni in Laterano (Fig. 121); these columns, too, were supposed
to have come from the Temple of Jerusalem, brought back filled with earth
from Mount Calvary by Empress Helen, mother of Constantine the Great.
Emulating these illustrious precedents, Paul V planned to cast the processional
baldachin at St Peter's in bronze, creating a majestic, permanent "temporary"
display, a kind of angelic celebration of the three distinctive features
of the St Peter's altar - the commemoration of the apostles, the celebration
of the Sacrament, and the sanctity of the papacy. At opposite ends of
the typological and topographical scale, the isolated baldachin served
as a light, open structure to mark the tomb altar without blocking the
vista toward the apse, where the ciborium appeared as an architectural
monument in conjunction with an architectural setting.

THE
BALDACCHINO (1624-35)

Urban VIII and Bernini
approached the dilemma of St Peter's in a fundamentally new spirit of
consolidation and unification, seeking to encompass and subordinate under
a dominant theme the disparate legacies of tradition and the contributions
of their predecessors. This powerful new inspiration motivated two epoch-making
decisions: the preeminence and centrality of the crossing was reaffirmed
by returning the high altar to the tomb; and the altar was to be marked
by a structure that would meld the heretofore distinct types of celebratory
baldachin and commemorative architectural ciborium. (For Bernini's conception
the term "baldachin," which normally refers to a nonarchitectural covering,
is literally a half-truth. Wanting a better name, I have retained the
Italian for Bernini's monumental version.) Visually, the effect was to
reconcile, in permanent form on a colossal scale, the conflicting values
of minimal structure and open visibility with architectural permanence
and monumentality (Figs. 122, 123, 124).

Bernini's initial
design consisted of four spiral columns supporting semicircular ribs that
intersected diagonally; from the apex, crowning the whole structure, rose
a figure of the Resurrected Christ holding the bannered cross (Fig. 125).
Standing on the columns are angels who seem to carry a tasseled canopy
by means of ribbons strung through loops on its top and secured to the
ribs. The columns replace the staves of the earlier baldachins, their
spiral form alluding to the Solomonic marble columns. The angels suspend
the canopy of the baldachin from above, divine replacements for the ropes
on which "floating" but stationary baldachins were hung from the vault
above the pope in ceremonies when he was seated enthroned (Fig. 126);
and the crossed ribs recall those which had conjoined the marble columns
in the Constantinian shrine (Fig. 127).

This astonishing
amalgam of ephemerality and monumentality fused the processional character
of the Sistine with the architectural character of the Lateran sacrament
altars. The powerful, spiraling movement of the columns has its animate
continuation in the angels, who perform the celebratory work of covering
the altar, and culminates in the figure of Christ, who rises to take his
place in heaven, as depicted in the dome above. One "material" key to
the solution was the use of bronze, not normally associated with either
the baldachin or the ciborium types, which permitted the vast scale and
the daring structural engineering the project demanded. Bernini's Baldacchino
was certainly the greatest enterprise of bronze casting since antiquity,
and in this sense, as well as in its sacramental content, the project
took up Paul V's homage and challenge to the Lateran sacrament altar -
the greatest legacy of antiquity in this respect, and a particular model
to surpass because of its provenance from the fabled Jewish Temple of
Jerusalem. Beside emulating these predecessors, Bernini's use of bronze
was a practical necessity, to achieve the Baldacchino's unexampled fusion
of forms. But the amalgam also had particular significance as a material
because of its continuity, fluidity, and transformability in the crucible
of fire.8 Associated
with this quasi-alchemical process was an almost mystical sense of the
spirit that animates all creativity: the matrix of a bronze cast was actually
called the "anima."

After further deliberation,
Bernini's initial idea had to be modified because it was feared that the
weight and lateral thrusts of the superstructure might cause the columns
to give way. In the final solution three major changes were made that
resulted in an even more egregiously "impossible" design. The load was
lightened by substituting for the complex, drapery-swathed figure of Christ,
the simple, regular configuration of the globe-surmounted cross. The semicircular
ribs were transformed into spring-like, curving volutes that served to
raise the center of gravity and make the thrusts upon the columns more
vertical. Finally, the canopy was lowered to coincide with the tops of
the columns so that a continuous band could serve to tie the columns together
(Figs. 128, 129).

Each of these changes
entailed a shift of meaning. The resurrected Christ was replaced by the
traditional symbol of Christianity's promise of universal salvation. Palm
fronds, symbols of victory, grow from the crossed ribs, which take the
form of a crown - the crown of martyrdom in memory of Christ's sacrifice
and those of Peter and Paul whose relics sanctify the high altar. Each
of the ribs consists of three volutes, which differ in design and function.
The largest, central volute rests directly on the inner corner of the
column's impost entablature, whereas the two lesser, flanking scrolls
curl up at the corners of the baldachin and seem to bear no weight - on
the contrary, their spring-like coils suggest buoyancy. Wreaths of laurel
held delicately by the angels with the tips of their fingers disappear
beneath these spiral volutes and serve the ambivalent function of sustaining
both the volutes and the canopy; conversely, the central, larger volutes
disappear between their neighbors as they rise to the top. The superstructure
of the Baldacchino is thus quite literally a mystery-bound affair, in
which a triune summa of honorific markers - processional-carried and stabile-suspended
baldachins, and architectural ciborium - is achieved by the angels who
have alighted to conjoin - mysteriously, imperceptibly - heaven and earth.
Considered thus, it is easy to see why, according to a critic of the project,
Bernini insisted that "in any case, he wanted it to be sustained by angels."9

The same commentator
also perceived and railed against the device that is the key to Bernini's
solution in "architectural" terms, insisting that "baldachins are not
sustained on columns but on staves," and that "the baldachin does not
run together with the cornice of the columns." Bernini's entire design
was created in order to make precisely those impermissible things happen:
the cornice continues uninterrupted around the structure, while the frieze
between the columns consists not of metopes and triglyphs proper to architecture
but of lappets and tassels proper to a cloth canopy. This deliberate elision
of the conventional grammar of design - a sort of visual "ain't" - makes
a virtue of necessity, since only thus could baldachin and ciborium truly
merge while retaining the essential integrity of both. No wonder Bernini
referred to himself as a "bad Catholic" (preferable to Borromini, a good
heretic) and believed that the great challenge of the architect was to
make disadvantages appear to have been invented on purpose, and to "surpass
the rules without breaking them." In the final analysis Bernini's Baldacchino
is exactly what the same detractor called it in derogation, a "chimera,"
a perfect, inextricable, and indissoluble fusion of three heretofore distinct
categories of visually significant thought: the immediacy of the processional
baldachin, the animated suspense of the hanging canopy, and the monumental
stability of the ciborium. The task of accomplishing this unreasonable
fusion is assigned, quite properly, to the angels, whose garland swags
disappear from view to work their magic in privacy, as it were, at the
crucial juncture of all three elements.

The change in the
design and symbolism of the crown entailed a shift in emphasis from the
sacrament itself to the universal dominion of Christianity as an institution,
and in turn to the role of the papacy in the administration of that legacy.
At the same time, insignia of the papacy in general and of Urban VIII
in particular were introduced all over the Baldacchino, which is literally
strewn with Barberini emblems: the sun, laurel, and the famous bees. What
is important about this phenomenon is not its testimony to the personal
egotism and ambition of Urban VIII - the usual cliché - but to the pope's
view of the nature of his office and its role in the mission of the Church.
A literally wondrous instance of the coincidence of the human and divine
upon which the faith rested was the bee - a traditional symbol of Divine
Wisdom - three of which formed the Barberini coat of arms. The vicariate
of Christ was not only bestowed on Saint Peter by the Lord himself; its
succession was also determined by an act of divine will, which inspired
every papal election by the college of cardinals. In one way or another,
all of Urban's emblems alluded to the intervention of divine will on earth.
But this intervention had become direct and visible at his election when,
upon his winning by a single vote (in a second ballot upon which he had
himself insisted to confirm the previous count), the Sistine Chapel was
invaded by a swarm of bees!10

These considerations
of material and design in turn help to illuminate the relationship between
the bronze "anima" of the Baldacchino, its triune composition of celebratory
and commemorative markers, and the Trinitarian theme that has often been
noted in the spiritual ascent from the sacrament at the altar: the resplendent
dove of the Holy spirit on the underside of the canopy, the resurrected
Christ seated in judgment in the cupola, God the Father in the lantern
above (Figs. 115, 124). The consonance of material, form, and meaning
coincides with the great visual drama of the Baldacchino itself: massive
in scale and ponderous in proportions, it fairly writhes in a powerful
paroxysm of movement and energy to its own climax, and beyond toward the
vault on high.

Finally, it is important
to realize that the revolutionary design of the Baldacchino was accompanied
by a no less significant procedural revolution in the execution of the
work. The idea of erecting a monumental architectural, or quasi-architectural,
baldachin-ciborium over the high altar in the vast reaches of the new
basilica posed quite unprecedented problems of scale and proportions,
which were confronted in quite unprecedented ways. Under Bernini's direction
Borromini produced detailed perspectival drawings - unlike any seen before
- specifically intended to visualize the relationship between the proposed
structure and the building itself (Fig. 130). And an equally unheralded
procedure was followed in three dimensions: detailed models of various
sizes up to the final, full scale were created and installed in situ so
the effect could be judged.11
No work of this kind and at this scale had ever been premeditated to this
degree and in this way. Implicit in this method is a new, "wholistic"
conceptual mode - the Baldacchino was not an independent piece of church
furniture, as it were, but an integral part of the building itself. This
attitude was adumbrated by the scale of Maderno's temporary baldachins,
but now fully articulated in fully monumental form. Yet, the elaborate
planning procedure notwithstanding, the biographers report that Bernini
himself, speaking precisely of the matter of scale and proportional relationships,
said that the Baldacchino had succeeded "per caso," by chance. The explanation
of the paradox is implicit in the biographers' observations that because
the scale of the undertaking was unprecedented there were no established
standards, and ultimately no rule to guide the eye other than the mind
and genius of the artist, whose judgment "happened" to be right.12